The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been reportedly assassinated in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian police said Kim Jong-nam collapsed suddenly at Kuala Lumpur International Airport – KLIA – he died en-route to hospital.

Police official Fadzil Ahmat said the cause of death was not yet known, and a post-mortem would be carried out on the body.

According to the official, Kim Jong-nam had been planning to travel to Macau on Monday when he fell ill at the airport’s low-cost terminal. “He felt dizzy, so he asked for help at the counter of KLIA.”

Kim Jong-nam was taken to an airport clinic where he still felt unwell, and it was decided to take him to hospital :: Read the full article »»»»

South Korea, US and Chinese authorities have scrambled for confirmation of the test, however officials in Seoul have cast doubt on the claim it was a hydrogen bomb saying no radiation had been detected. If confirmed, the explosion marks a major step forward in the country’s nuclear development. The surprise test was personally ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and came just two days before his birthday :::: Read the full article »»»»

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority, South Korea’s spy agency has told a closed-door parliament meeting.

A vice minister for forestry was one of the officials executed for complaining about a state policy, a member of parliament’s intelligence committee, Shin Kyung-min, quoted an unnamed National Intelligence Service official as saying.

“Excuses or reasoning doesn’t work for Kim Jong-un, and his style of rule is to push through everything, and if there’s any objection, he takes that as a challenge to authority and comes back with execution as a showcase,” Mr Shin said.

“In the four months this year, 15 senior officials are said to have been executed,” Mr Shin cited the intelligence official as saying, according to his office :: Read the full article »»»»

Our most favourite revolutionary Fidel Castro has credited North Korea with supplying Cuba with free weapons in the 1980s after the Soviet Union said it could no longer defend the island against an American invasion.

Castro’s reminiscence in an article published Wednesday came as United Nations experts were scrutinizing a shipment of Cuban arms to North Korea to determine if they violated a UN ban.

Castro has dismissed the discovery of the undeclared arms aboard a North Korean freighter – more below -transiting the Panama Canal as an attempt to smear Cuba.

In an article penned by the most beloved former leader today, marking his 87th birthday, Castro did not mention the case but praised North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung for coming to Cuba’s aid near the end of the Cold War :: Read the full article »»»»

Emergency Service officials in the Japanese city of Yokohama have been left red-faced after mistakenly announcing the launch of a North Korean missile to 40,000 followers on Twitter. The city, south of Tokyo, prematurely fired its tweet just before noon (local time), announcing “North Korea has launched a missile” with blank spaces to indicate the exact time.

South Korean and US forces have raised their alert status to “vital threat” before an expected North Korean missile test, with tensions high in the run-up to a key anniversary. Any launch could coincide with visits by US secretary of state John Kerry and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will both be in South Korea this Friday.

South Korean foreign minister Yun Byung-Se told parliament the launch could take place “any time” and warned Pyongyang it risked triggering a fresh round of UN sanctions :: Read the full article »»»»

North Korea has threatened to scrap the armistice which ended the Korean War in 1953, citing US moves to impose sanctions for its nuclear test and tensions over South Korean-US exercises.

The threat comes amid reports from the United Nations that China and the United States have reached agreement on new measures to punish the North for last month’s nuclear weapons test.

The North’s military said it could launch a “precise” strike anytime, unrestrained by the armistice. It also warned it could mount a strike with atomic weapons to counter any US nuclear threat.

In a statement on official media yesterday, the military called the joint exercise a “most blatant” provocation and slammed a “vicious” scheme by the US and its allies to push for tougher United Nations sanctions

UPDATE! March 18 2013: The North’s foreign ministry, in a statement carried by state TV on Sunday, rejected suggestions that the impoverished state was using its weapons program as a way of bullying neighbours into offering much-needed aid.

“The US is seriously mistaken if it thinks that [North Korea] had access to nukes as a bargaining chip to barter them for what it called economic reward,” the statement said :: Read the full article »»»»